Premier Giorgia Meloni on Friday said the supreme Cassation Court's ruling in favour of an appeal filed by a group of migrants who were not allowed to disembark from the Italian coast guard's Diciotti vessel that had rescued them at sea on August 16-25 2018 as part of then-interior minister Matteo Salvini's closed-ports policy was "questionable".
"The joint chambers of the Cassation Court have sentenced the government to pay compensation to a group of illegal migrants transported by the Diciotti ship because the cabinet at the time, with Interior Minister Matteo Salvini, did not immediately allow them to disembark in Italy.
"They did it by affirming a compensation principle that is highly questionable, which assumes damage, in contrast with consolidated case law and with the conclusions of the prosecutor general", Meloni said on social media.
"Substantially, due to this decision, the government will need to pay compensation - with the money of honest Italian citizens who pay taxes - people who tried to enter Italy illegally, violating the law of the Italian State", also wrote the premier.
Meloni noted how such a decision would not help "citizens get closer to institutions".
The League party led by Deputy Premier and Transport Minister Matteo Salvini meanwhile called the ruling "absurd" in a note.
"These judges should pay with their own money if they love illegal (migrants) so much", said the statement posted on social media.
Italy's supreme Cassation Court on Friday ruled in favour of the appeal demanding that the Italian government compensate the Diciotti passengers on the grounds that they had been deprived of their personal freedom.
The Cassation's panel of judges sent the case back to a regular court saying the tribunal will need to decide the amount of compensation to be granted to the migrants.
The Diciotti coast guard ship picked up 190 migrants on August 16 2018 from an overcrowded boat off Lampedusa after they were refused entry to Malta.
Thirteen of them were taken to Lampedusa because of serious medical conditions but the remaining 177, mostly from Eritrea, remained stranded on the boat for 10 days.
Salvini was at the time probed for allegedly abducting the migrants on the ship.
However the Senate, of which Salvini was a member, rejected a request to investigate the former interior minister filed by the tribunal of ministers tasked with cases involving members of the executive.
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